s&d: True Crime! books

reading that whitey bulger book 'black mass' at the moment. about 20% through and so far it's just a load of admin about the fbi chain of command. no real drama or gripping tales or anything (full disclosure: been rewatching sopranos lately), does it get better or should i ditch it for that 'going clear' scientology book?

Don't skip Going Clear, whether you continue with Black Mass or not. Haven't read that one, but so far Whitey Bulger America's Most Wanted Gangster and The Manhunt That Brought Him To Justice, by Kevin Cullen and Shelly Murphy---two Boston experts on WB from way back, especially Cullen---is pulling me right along.
Also want to read the memoir by Jennifer Mascia (who also wrote a lot for the NYTimes' Gun Report blog). Her father was a low-level Mafia brokester and murderer; she gets to the meat of it in this intro:
http://www.amazon.com/Never-Tell-Our-Business-Strangers/dp/B008SLDY1A

thanks dow. so the 'most wanted gangster' one is worth reading? this one is so dry and unengaging but has wild raving reviews online, people saying to read that one first etc. tempted just read that jenna jameson book and be done with it

mascia book sounds much more like what i'm after

Well, the Most Wanted is mainstream newspaper journalism (why go tabloid, when it's more effective to let the litany of typical atrocities speak for themselves), but not like a clipping file. Murphy was digging deep when he could've been digging his own grave, and has continued to do, not sparing the local and Fed elements who aided and abetted Bulger for so many years.

Also, if you like Mascia, check this one: http://www.amazon.com/Five-Finger-Discount-Crooked-Family-History/dp/0375758704

Oh guys this thread is great. I don't really read true crime as much as use my monthly audible credit on it. The stuff I have 'read' is pretty trashy so far with the exception of 'Stranger Beside Me'. That one had me jumping at shadows for a good month. A couple of recent hits and misses:

Search:
'Lost and Found' by John Glatt - This is about the Jaycee Lee Duggard case.

Destroy:
'A Warrant to Kill: A True Story of Obsession, Lies and a Killer Cop' by Kathryn Casey - I usually like Kathryn Casey's books when I'm in the mood for a story about some crazy, small town texan, ex-high school football star having no concept of divorce as an option. All that heat and concussion. You know someone's about to get brutal. This one though. Ugh. I mean it was okay but there was zero info on the relationship between the cop (killer Kent MacGowan) and his victim (Susan White. I man, I guess he was harassing her but its all very vague.

Gregg Olsen's 'Bitch on Wheels' (originally released as 'The Confessions of an American Black Widow') - This book 11 hours long (lol audiobook) but I'm fairly sure if all of the 'slut' references were cut out it would maybe 45 minutes. Less if you take out the foreword where we have to hear Olsen's opinion that everyone is obsessed with slutty female murders. Again, not really sure why she was having these guys killed except maybe some smallish insurance claims and, of course, her slutty magic vagina. Why one person, somewhere, was once maybe heard to claim 'If Sharon had as many dicks sticking out of her as there had been put in her she'd resemble a porcupine!' (<-- highlight of the book, honestly). Anyway, I went away with the feeling that Gregg Olsen is way creepier than the instigator of these murders.

Thinking about maybe Ann Rule's 'Small Sacrifices' next.

Small Sacrifices was the first Ann Rule book I ever read (way back in early high school). It's SO good.

does 'methland' count as a true crime book? anyway, methland! thanks to la lechera for mentioning it somewhere elsewhere, it piqued my interest.

Another one I've always meant to read---think I saw the author on Book TV way back; must check their archives---description from Amazon (don't look up the rest of it if you're a spoiler weenie)

The Murder of Helen Jewitt
Patricia Cline Cohen

In 1836, the murder of a young prostitute made headlines in New York City and around the country, inaugurating a sex-and-death sensationalism in news reporting that haunts us today. Patricia Cline Cohen goes behind these first lurid accounts to reconstruct the story of the mysterious victim, Helen Jewett.

From her beginnings as a servant girl in Maine, Helen Jewett refashioned herself, using four successive aliases, into a highly paid courtesan. She invented life stories for herself that helped her build a sympathetic clientele among New York City's elite, and she further captivated her customers through her seductive letters, which mixed elements of traditional feminine demureness with sexual boldness.

But she was to meet her match--and her nemesis--in a youth called Richard Robinson. He was one of an unprecedented number of young men who flooded into America's burgeoning cities in the 1830s to satisfy the new business society's seemingly infinite need for clerks. The son of an established Connecticut family, he was intense, arrogant, and given to posturing. He became Helen Jewett's lover in a tempestuous affair and ten months later was arrested for her murder...

not a book but I couldn't remember if there was another thread on true crime docs etc

Watched the HBO 'Cheshire Murders' doc today. Holyyyy shit. I must have been living in a hole because I dont' remember this one at all. Home invasion murder of a mom & 2 daughters in Connecticut in 2007, dad was beaten with a bat & tied up in the basement - he survives. The 2 perps get the death penalty. The scene was fucking horrible, confessions are completely chilling.

One of the weirdest details of the case though is that at some point early in the morning one of the perps drives the mom to a bank and sends her in alone to make a withdrawal. She told the teller that 2 men were holding her and her family hostage so the bank manager calls the police (the documentary starts with that 911 call detailing exactly what's going on). Next thing you know, approx half an house later the house is in flames, mom & 2 girls are dead...and the cops appear to have been surveilling the house that whole time! And this whole time the police have been 100% radio silence on why exactly no contact was made with the occupants or any rescue attempted once the house was burning...the family has written letters, no-one's talked to them, nothing. It's crazy!

Anyway, definitely watch it if you get the chance.

*half an hour, not half an house

the 2 girls were verifiably ALIVE in the house when it was set alight. Even when one of the perps was caught near the scene, apparently one of the first things he said was that the girls were still in the house and that they were alive.

Is it only on HBO or can you get it on Netflix or Amazon or other?

I don't even know if I can watch it.

i watched on hbo ondemand... idk if it's available anywhere else, though you cd probably t0rrent it

It may be available to watch in the most obvious free online video watching place if you hurry....

i started the Pamela Smart doc this afternoon on hbo as well... that's an eyeopener too

just obtained cheshire murders. now maybe i will get some things done now so i can watch it before bed.

let me know what u think

this is really good but i can't watch it all tonight. i recommend it.

It's a fascinating, upsetting doc; Hayes' defense attorney is a lousy liar. K is pitiable, which is hard to take.

the stuff with K's girlfriend was really disturbing to me

or wife, or whatever she was

Very, very much so. I think it's good to be reminded of the sad humanity behind the perps of terrible crimes when it is there, and damn, K is a hard luck case. He also belongs in jail for the rest of his life, but the biggest failing of US society was letting him become who he became, not its failure to kill him by lethal injection.

banality of evil etc, yeah.

I got the impression from k's shrink, and his girlfriend, that he is very good at reflecting other people back to themselves. k's romantic letters to his girlfriend read exactly like someone who is choosing the exact right words to say. even the taped confession, his choice of words at times was odd, like an alien practicing idioms or something. I dunno. he seemed more mask than anything to me.

it was awful that he continually referred to the Petit girl by her family nickname.

"KeKe" and that he often left off the definite article when talking about "the mom" and "the dad" were terrible and telling details to me.

yep

Whoa I need to watch this!!!

i am reading anatomy of an injustice which is pretty good and at a low reading level so i read 40% of it in a few hours

sorry, anatomy of injustice

Xpost I watched it on YT, it was amazing, WTF Cheshire PD

just bought "Crimson Stain" by Jim Fisher at a used bookstore

know nothing about it except that it's THE SHOCKING TRUE STORY OF THE ONLY AMISH MAN EVER CONVICTED OF HOMICIDE

so far so good

about a third of the way in and it's actually pretty good

very workmanlike structure/writing, nothing flashy...but the story kind of tells itself anyway. 26 year old Amish guy murdered his wife...but to say murdered makes it seem far less maniacal than the scene actually was. He pretty much mutilated her.

He was clearly disturbed for some time, but the craziest thing is that just from the little I've read it seems like he had some form of solvent-induced schizophrenia from working with engine degreaser in an unventilated garage. Dude's brain is deforming right in front of his whole community for months, it's just crazy.

ugh

maybe only loosely fitting into true crime category, but there is an hbo documentary on amazon prime called "there's something wrong with aunt diane" that is so weird and scary

sorry meant to say it was about the 2009 crash where the lady was driving the wrong way and 8 people died

I watched that! Weird + scary is a v otm description

jesus aunt diane and the cheshire murders were like my life u guys, guess i shldve talked abt them here

you still can!

fyi I started reading the Black Dahlia Files by Donald Wolfe

It's really well-written, but I think a lot of it is pretty fanciful as far as 'solving' the murder. I guess it's kinda like the Zodiac stuff, the further away you get from the actual crime the more everyone is at great pains to come up with super convoluted solutions

Makes for fun reading though. I was wondering, are there any books just about the showgirls/call-girls/struggling starlets to-be in Hollywood during the 40's? It just seems like those women all knew each other and had this kind of network that I think would make for really interesting reading.
idk

xpost 'fun' as in reading about a theory I hadn't read before, not fun in terms of murder etc

did they ever print a Murder Can Be Fun book? -- a compendium of all the issues of that zine? I only had a handful of issues

xpost---VG, I hope there is a book like that; great idea for one, anyway. Anybody read Ellroy's My Dark Places? "Part memoir, part investigative reporting":

On 21 June 1958, Geneva Hilliker Ellroy left her home in California. She was found strangled the next day. Her ten year-old son James had been with her estranged husband all weekend and was informed of her death on his return. Her murderer was never found, but her death had an enduring effect on her son - he spent his teens and early adult years as a wino, petty burglar and derelict.

Only later, through his obsession with crime fiction, triggered by his mother's murder, did Ellroy begin to delve into his past. Shortly after the publication of his groundbreaking novel WHITE JAZZ, he determined to return to Los Angeles and, with the help of veteran detective Bill Stoner, attempt to solve the 38-year-old killing.

ok I'm living in the Black Dahlia rabbit hole now

Finished the Wolfe book - but a) the last third of it basically regurgitates interviews from John Gilmore's 'Severed', b) he makes it way more complicated than it needed to be, and c) it seemed very handwavey to me in general. I think he's a good writer, but even not being a huge BD nerd I just got this vibe that he was working really hard to make connections stick

So I went to the library yesterday afternoon and picked up the Hodel 'Black Dahlia Avenger'.

This one's even more tenuous right from the getgo because those photos that belonged to his Dad that Hodel says OMG IT'S THE BLACK DAHLIA...they don't look like Elizabeth Short really at all except for having black hair and a flower in her hair. But Hodel's dad was a MEGA creep and they have a really fascinating family history so I'm more reading it for that than anything else. As a Black Dahlia book I dunno how much value it has.

that ellroy book sounds great, has anyone read it?

I read it a long time ago but I don't really remember it :/

i read half of it. no reason i didn't finish it other than i don't finish most books. i liked what i read.

the Ellroy book is like the nuttiest bio this side of Klaus Kinski. Highly fucked up and very entertaining

This one's even more tenuous right from the getgo because those photos that belonged to his Dad that Hodel says OMG IT'S THE BLACK DAHLIA...they don't look like Elizabeth Short really at all except for having black hair and a flower in her hair. But Hodel's dad was a MEGA creep and they have a really fascinating family history so I'm more reading it for that than anything else. As a Black Dahlia book I dunno how much value it has.

― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, September 22, 2014 5:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah that's a fascinating book, mainly like you said just for the twisted family history. Hodel's case for his dad being the killer of Elizabeth Short is laughable, even more so now that he's written a follow-up book accusing his dad of being the Zodiac murderer as well.

the book is literally called MOST EVIL

xpost I saw something about his Zodiac theory last night. I'm just to the point in the Black Dahlia Avenger where he's listing every unsolved murder from that period and pinning it on his Dad, along with the two kidnapping/disappearances, and it's like, shhhhhhh, it's ok we KNOW your Dad's a creep, shhhhhh, just let it go

and then I was looking up stuff about the Sowden House & found out this guy had cadaver dogs on the property and they did soil analysis to find out if bodies were buried in the back yard. What a surprise they came up with a big fat zero